A while back, NS tried to point out the flaw of tank offense having a linear (_purely_ linear) component to it -- net worth. His point got lost, diluted, side-tracked, etc. (I helped with that, sorry)... But I thought of another scenario today: concentration.

Let's say I have a Fireball. It costs me 16 experience per level to train. I am diluted, because I have 2, 3, or 4 minions on my team. Even if I devote ALL POSSIBLE resources to that DD, I am limited by the experience that one minion can train.

Now. Consider the tank. He might be diluted too. However, part of his offense, the linear net worth (x) of his weapon, is NOT diluted. Money is not spread amongst minions. It goes to the whole team, which can then shove all that cash into a single weapon (with a weapon allowance, no less!)

Even if I spend all my cash on buying BA, the most I can invest in my already-expensive Fireball is HALF my experience (and that's with only two minions!). Meanwhile, tanks I am neck and neck with can be happily pumping ALL of their cash into weapons until I have to take yet another character off my fight list. It's dead-end after dead-end. The worst irony is that it is a dead-end on the ONE THING that can be had no other way = MPR. I can't fix this with cash. I can't fix this with savvy rentals, winning contests, or loaning money -- cash is useless. Even if I hire minions, it's useless. I have no support for my main "weapon" -- my mage. No weapons to help, no EDs to train, nothing. Meanwhile, tanks can pump all cash (even if it isn't USD!) into weapons, seekers, armor, etc...concentrating net worth in a way I cannot.

And just to start it off, here are three things, small things, that would help:

-- a cap on training cost at 15 experience per level.
-- ability to hire minions for free, no experience on the minion (someone has brought this up a million times, I just can't think of who).
-- EDs for mages...give some more enchantments that can aid DD in some way; ideas have been plentiful and well-thought-out.

Yes, these all would help me. I know it and admit it. They also would help with mage variety, minion-number variety, and net worth vs. DD variety. I can't think of why anyone would think of those as bad things.

I guess the only reason is that DD spells are guaranteed to hit, so giving them a linearly upgradeable item to boost the DD spell would be equivalent to allowing tanks to only train STR. I know there is the argument about double hits with weapons, but you still need either a large dex or a large pth/toa for that to happen anyways.

I understood NS's point from the beginning. The thing is, it's always been that way. But the biggest change in the tanks favour was not the boost in damage, although that helps, but the change in how weapons are upgraded. Previously I stayed away from proper tank teams because of the way costs rose as your weapons got bigger. Now I can just continue to raise the damage on my weapons forever if I wish. Previously it would hit the same point as Sut is , where I just could not afford to increase the damage an extra point.

Aren't we forgetting to mention ST and DX in this thread? Both are needed for a tank to be successful, and things like Evasion really can ruin your day.

Remember that Evasion does neutralize the most expensive + upgrades, not the cheapest ones. A 10 evasion for example means that about 3.5M of my weapon's NW is wasted (the cost of the last 10 upgrades to +).

Your own DX trains fairly linearly, but you'll need to compare it to your opponents DX, which quite likely also grows at a fairly linear rate.

AC is far more effective against tanks than it is against mages, and that formula is *far* from linear, not favoring tanks.

So basically, all Sut has to do to compete with tanks, is to get up 30m, hire a minion to be a wall, spend another 25m on equipment for said wall, and train for 8 months or so, giving time for his wall to be effective, and he'll be a tank competitor in no time... Duh?

Wait... That sounds a bit harder than making a Forging Services post, spending half as much on an upgrade that'll take a couple weeks to do. Or spending 3/4 of the money, and going to the BS back and forth over a couple days, and dominating yet again...

I realize that mage teams are the 'cheaper' way to play cb2, but I really see no reason why a mage team couldn't choose to play 'expensively'. If I wanted to spend 150 million CB2 in just pumping my damage, I can do exactly that except that all I'll get is a measly + a couple on my CoI. On the other hand, someone can make a godly elbow out of it and ruin every mage's day with some cheap seekers (had to take another stab ;P)
I was actually thinking about suggesting a mage staff of sorts which you could linearly forge to the similiar effect of weapons but then realised that all that's doing is making magic disturbingly close to melee.
The only other thing I can think of is more armour pieces directed to mages (oh COME ON, all we have is CoI and alatar's), and at least one or two more Skills, EDs and EOs directed at mages... I know I'm only at 650~k MPR, but I'm already feeling Sut's helplessness.. I keep growing.. but I keep ending up at -4,000,000 HP by tanks... so what am I supposed to do, train 5 million HP? LOL (trying out tattoo of endurance so maybe that'll help)

Sut isn't in the top 50 for NW yet is knocking on the door of the top 10 with score. Why shouldn't he spend another $50m to be right up there at the top?

Changes may be needed, but balance is essential and it would be so easy to tip it too far. If changes are to be made then they need to be the right ones and not made for the sole reason of making them.

Moddin and G Beee both make good points though. Sut's team is up there without anywhere near the NW of tank teams at similar level - and if you compare him to the nearest tank team Failure, two minion tank team - with only half the battles fought.

And anyone who hasn't fought as a proper tank team will never understand how much it actually costs. Sut, I know you've run tank teams in both CB1 and CB2. I seem to remember you commenting on how you simply couldn't afford to compete as a tank. Sefton's said the same thing recently. I've been doing alright as a tank, simply because I don't spend my money on anything else but my weapons. However, as Nightstrike once pointed out, while my weapons raise at a good rate, so do those people who utilise USD, or the NUB players who make a lot more money than me. I don't think the gap between them and me is as extreme as Nightstrike made it, mainly because I'm not spending money on anything else. But the gap is there. If you don't have the cash you won't have a good tank. It's as simple as that.

I've played as a tank on cb1 and cb2, now as a mage on cb2. The most difficult so far has been the mage. Now i'm getting to the higher ranks with a mage team, over 1million mpr, its getting harder. I won't be able to get my score any higher then this without dumping USD into the game, not to pump armour, but to buy minions (not the cheap ones either) That is all I can do now to raise my score. Me gaining more mpr is having a negative effect. Gaining more MPR isn't helping me beat more people, its just lowering the fight rewards I get now because my pr is getting higher. Anyway. Dog it dog world. I'd like to see some changes which make a mage team more.... viable at higher levels. Sure, I could come up with ideas, but whats the point?

I ddin't read anything but the original post. This is ridiculous, Mages and Tanks are how they are for a reason, because Jon made it that way. Complaining and fishing for a change is useless. Why can't everyone just play the game as it is.

just for Kicks why doesn't EVERY UC char start complaining about having to put Exp into UC and not getting anywhere. Its technically the same. Few Items to boost it and even fewer if you use a tat. Don't tell me no mumbo jumbo. UC requires EVEN more exp because you need Str Dex and UC to make it work, were as a mage only needs the DD. both have items to boost it.

Im so sick of hearing people complain. you can Sink USD into Mage Building Items aswell.

The point of this thread wasn't tank vs. mage -- it is MPR vs. net worth.

There is NO WAY to focus MPR on a single minion (unless your team _is_ a single minion). Heck, that's why auras and enchantments are so popular -- they are a way to leverage a single trained stat across your team. A mage cannot do that with DD, unless it is a single mage that puts all of his experience into one stat.

Net worth, on the other hand, is always concentrated, because money rewards go to the whole team. Imagine if a tank on a four-minion team were only allowed to spend 1/4th of the team's cash. That's my point. I don't care about multiple hits and STR and DEX, etc. etc. I think tank damage and mage damage are pretty balanced, especially at lower to mid levels.

But at the high levels, I have exactly ONE WAY to enhance my offense, and that is to train DD on my mage. That option is pure MPR, it is diluted, and it is 7% more expensive than ANY other stat training in the game. Meanwhile, a tank can devote all of his money to the net worth portion of his damage, linearly, and still be devoting all other experience to other parts of his team. The issue only seems big to me at this very high level.

G_Beee, even if I hired two more minions (which would cost 60 million, not 50 million, I am not sure I would raise much in score. Because answer me this: what would I invest in for those two new minions? NOTHING on them will increase my offense, and that's what I need right now. In fact, more minions would just dilute my experience further, making my offense be well-nigh non-increasing from here on out. How would that help?

Perhaps I'm missing something but unlike physical weapons, DD spells are unavoidable and completely ignore a portion of a target's armor. If someone was so inclined, they could pump millions into a wall's armor and, should they pump enough, completely destroy a tank's effectiveness. I don't think it's any harder to do that with mages, but I do think it's pretty fair right now. Perhaps we should all spend less time complaining and more time burning BA.

I agree with the first half of your line, Forge: perhaps you are missing something. Go back and re-read.

This isn't tank vs. mage, this is about being able to pump money to increase damage for tanks without even touching EXP, but having no such alternative for a mage. There's no way to match their NW, you just have to boost MPR, and even that's got a limit - how many fights per day and how much EXP per point (which is rather high at sut's size). I won't rant anymore, but like I said, do please go back and re-read.

What it would allow is true refinement of a strategy. Never will you have more experience then you think necessary on a stat. Never can a single minion complain about 4 minions and their beauty.

It would lesson importance of USD by making hiring 4 minions immediately complete okay (just xfer all exp 3 of them get on to the main one)

I thought of this idea for a long time, but I am aware it won't be the most popular thing in the world so didn't ever really voice it as viable. This would also allow mages to reduce ALOT of the NW tanks have, and use their own.

Since the most recent time I tried to bring up this topic for discussion, I've thought of another possible solution. First, revert the weapon change. That thing is only going to hasten the ultimate death of CB. Second, make the way that ST affects damage linear. Currently, it's non-linear. To really match mages, tie tank MPR to mage MPR. Then things might be somewhat more manageable. A tank's weapon would just be akin to a mage's AG.

To all those advocating hiring more minions or changing strats, you're missing the point -- adding a minion to Sut's strat will only delay the inevitable. Sut is growing at a slow rate (1/16 * 1/2 * XP per fight). Add another minion, even decked out with wall armor, and you slow that down more (1/16 * 1/3 * xp). So what do you do in a month when the bandaid of another minion falls off? That wall has armor that grows nonlinearly, so eventually, the tank's weapon will out-pace it. Hire a fourth minion? Ok. Done.

A month goes by, and the last minion now has run out of usefulness. It has virtually no XP compared to the other minions, and the NW is maxed out, as it can only be applied to non-linear growth items. Sut is back in the exact same place -- he can't increase his damage relative to the tank's damage increase. His damage is now increasing at 1/16 * 1/4 * XP per fight, while a tank is not. Now what does he do?

The thing is, even if you lessen the degree to which $ increases damage on a weapon so that $ per fight increases damage roughly the same as 1/16 * 1/4 * xp per fight, you're still facing the fact that there is zero limit to the amount of $$ that you can pour into a weapon in a given time t.

G_Beee, 30 million for a minion, and then what? What equipment? Let's cover possibilities:

-- Try to make the new minion a tank. Erm, no. Not enough experience to train.
-- Make the new minion a wall. Hm, 20 million in AC would get me to what, 300 AC? That wouldn't do much to the large magic missiles and hits up here. Remember, even a 30-million-dollar minion is only going to train a single stat up to about 750K. That's a pittance up here! I trained pure DM on my second minion, and it got my fightlist stabilized. But only through training it on both minions have I been able to even get some heavy ED teams to draw.
-- Make the new minion a PL sink... That might help, might get me one extra round, though I doubt it. Invest 200K into PL and 550K into HP...that won't last long.
-- Make the new minion somehow augment my offense... Oops, no such augmentation exists for mages.

Since I added the new minion, some folks I used to draw with are now people I can regularly beat. Other than that, I haven't really added any targets, and a couple folks have pulled away (Failure and Kaiser). I'm buying all BA, am usually around 9-10% clan bonus, and I have a good-sized tattoo... What's left for me?

As for mages not being able to work at higher levels, if that is the case, then that would suck. *smile* I don't think it is the case.

What about the fact that a tank is a money pit ? A mage has a
couple of items to buy and then it's BA all the way. 650 extra BA
per day, waking or sleeping. That translates directly to exp and
thus PR. For a tank, it's a choice, buy BA or save up for the next
item/+ .
I know this is not perfect. A team can make more than enough
cash to buy all their BA every day and still run a profit but a single
minion tank team also has to dilute exp into 4 areas, ST, DX, HP
and usually a skill. Your mage grows much faster.

Look, guys, I'll restate my summary again since it always gets lost everytime this thread comes along -- a mage cannot keep its damage up compared to a tank. A tank's damage output will always outstrip him eventually. There is currently ZERO way to keep a mage's damage output on par with a tank.

Said another way: A mage can purchase 503 BA per day. A tank can purchase inf / $7k on his weapon every day.

Let's say that a BA costs $500 at a really high level (I think Ranger said he was around $460.) That's $251,500 spent on BA per day. Round to $250k even. After a mage spends $250k in a day to purchase XP, then what does he do with the rest of the day?

What happens is that it's a money race. A tank can in theory drop a bonus of 120960 into his weapon in the course of a day, assuming 5 seconds per click. That's at a cost of about a billion dollars. That's an extreme example to show that the only limit is the tank's wallet, not any game-related function. The tank HAS THE OPTION to spend that much on pure, linear damage. A mage has no choice whatsoever.

20 million in AC would get me to what, 300 AC? That wouldn't do much to the large magic missiles and hits up here.

Mages use those large magic missile - is the mage DD overpowered? :)

I'm not disagreeing with anyone here.
It's different, that's the point. Are you really comparing like for like. How does a mage strat compare against a tank strat that hasn't had USD pumped into it.
If you're looking for a mage strat that's gonna let you compete, without using USD, against tanks with USD then that's not fair to the tank folks who play the game "clean".
Not that I'm suggesting USD is "dirty" but I'm sure you understand what I mean...

I just updated the Wiki.... AG +20 happens to be $175m. Let's say I buy that for a 20% boost to DD. I can't do anything now until I save up an additional $143m to garner a whole 1% boost in DD. That translates into a boost of 0.65% for fireball. For $143 million dollars......

I understand you can't pump cash into a mage, I'm really not against you on this - honest!, however the question (and I don't know the answer - but I'm sure with your analytical skills you can find out :)) is whether a tank team that hasn't spent USD will be comparable against a mage team with a solid strat. If that's the case, then it's just a case of USD trumping all - but we know this already.

A tank team is typically multi minion with exp diluted. Does it really win hands down against a mage team without USD being thrown into the pot?
Are there examples of this in the game or is it all just theory - which isn't a bad thing - but I'd like to know for sure because I'm not 100% convinced in your argument.

Posion has a great team in NWO and not a lot of NW against it. Perhaps the correct mage strat hasn't been used yet...?

It depends on where your threshold is for USD spending. A NUB char will have boatloads of cash available to spend, and with good money management skills (such as excessive use of forging and whatnot), could probably get pretty far.

Ranger told everyone once in chat that he nets about 50k after buying BA. So at a really high level, rewards are enough such that after buying 503 BA, you still have 50k left over to spend as you please. With no USD added, can a mage adding 503 BA gain ground on a tank adding 503 BA plus 50k worth of damage upgrades (about a 7 point increase per day)? I would tend to think not.

It would help to know just how much damage comes from a single point increase to a weapon.

Ok, put simply.
Why is Poison's team (NWO) consistently in the top half dozen for score (assuming score is an indicator of a successful team) with a NW that is only 30th or so?
Likewise for Sut with a NW not even in the top 50 but a score consistently in the top 20 (currently 14th).

I would expect that almost everyone above NWO in the score ranking has sunk a USD figure well above the average threshold into their char. Likewise to a slightly lesser extent with Sut.

I don't believe we have a problem with Mage/Tank balance to the extent most people assume we do. Very few players play the mage well with many assuming, incorrectly in my opinion, that it's the option with least chance of success.

As I said earlier, if changes are to be made, please let's make sure we don't tip the balance too far just for the sake of making those changes.

Vlad Tepes (soon to be off my fight list too, I draw and lose a lot these days) has a PR of 1,977,082. Mine is 2,529,476. That's a PR advantage of around 28%!

He has a decent AMF, sure. But other than that, he's not particularly a mage-buster. No TSA, no MgS. But with me having 28% more PR, I have to take him off my fight list. At my PR, he would clearly best me, at least the majority of the time.

Is that a straight enough comparison? He is a tank team with moderate net worth, nothing huge. He uses ToA, I use SF. You might say, "but he has weapon allowance, so his PR isn't representative of his power!" Well, yeah, isn't that sort of a crock too then? A power rating that does everything except actually measure...power?

Something's got to give... More choices for mages, more love for lesser-minion teams, a more-representative PR... Something? A while back I ranted like this for a while, but when I compared my team to Conundrum, things did seem pretty equal (because of the Evasion change). Since then, I dropped 28 million on a minion, and have been _removing_ folks from my fight list every since.

Check out the PR list, and then look at my 24 hour summary. Everyone above my PR can beat me (handily, I rarely draw...Lega might be the only exception to that).

Then look below me... Xanas and Queen Bee have less PR, and I can beat them. But Kaiser and Alchemist (also lower) can beat me pretty much every time. Tezmac draws at this point. Failure is mostly draws, I think, but I have a feeling he would have the edge on wins were we to keep butting heads. These are folks _below_ my PR. Are you going to say it is all rock-scissors-paper when everyone above my PR can best me and several people below me can too? Where's the paper to my RUSTY SCISOR! *smile*

What "sucks" about my strategy is that two minions isn't enough, and more won't help at this point.

Seriously, what could I change? I optimized my main stats when we had free untrain -- DD is as high as I can go without wasting a lot of experience on a 16-per-level deal. I then optimized Evasion, making it high enough to pretty much make me untouchable in ranged (I need to train it a little bit, but it doesn't need much more). The rest was put into HP.

On the equipment front, I went EBs instead of DBs so I could augment my Evasion. I think switching to DBs would be robbing Peter to save Paul. I can try to insta my tattoo, but that isn't easy for anyone when tattoos are this big...

I don't think my team is anywhere near "great", but I do think it is darn good for what it is... I think Lorenzo is pretty good too, a little more skewed toward mage-busting than tank busting, which is why some o fthese young tank teams can best you...

Why not try equipping a MCM on your fireball mage? Sure it's not the be all and end all of solutions, but even one around +50 is going to make a difference in your favor. Some upgraded armor might be able to reduce some of the incoming damage enough to win you back a target or two.

Mian, if I did that, I would _be_ Kaiser. *smile* Not only do I find that tactic yawn-inducing, I don't like to be THAT much of a copy-cat. *smile* That is in no way a dig on Kaiser -- that is a wonderful team! Well played!

Yes, I need to try MM at some point. My feeling is that it would end up being a wash, but I might be underestimating my SF...

And I don't think I will bother with a big MCM. Would rather save money for insta-ing my tattoo or adding one more click to CoI and AGs... It's not a bad idea, I just think I can get better bang for buck elsewhere...

Cut away all the chaff, all the band aids, all the temporary relief that only lasts for so long... and you're in a situation where the tank's damage keeps growing faster than the mage's damage. That right there ends all the arguments. If the tank has a larger damage increase at the end of the week than the mage, then given a long time t, the tank will win. The tank will grow faster than the mage, and thus you have a losing battle. It doesn't matter what you do to stave off the inevitable -- the tank's damage is growing faster, plain and simple.

There are tons of ways to fix this:

Make ST damage linear, and revert the linear weapon model.
Make weapon cost follow the e^x xp curve.
Make an XP store (that's exactly what the weapon blacksmith is, after all)
Make AG linear (that's a rather boring change)
Limit the number of blacksmith upgrades in a day to roughly equal the damage gained via purchasing 503 BA. (You can avoid this by renting the item out to other people, but still, it's a start)

"The first would kill the game, as USD spenders would leave everyone in the dust and the NUB would become MASSIVE in about a week"

Not any moreso than mages are leaving everyone in the dust. Remember, you have to revert the weapon damage model change first. All it's doing is making it so that the only thing that's linear is MPR, not PR.

Well, the XP store is more of a nod towards exemplifying just what the linear weapon damage model really is. Tanks can go in and buy PR as much as they want. Mages cannot, since all of their PR comes from MPR. If a mage were allowed to purchase XP, however, as readily as can a tank, all would scream bloody murder. Yet, that's exactly what a tank does.

To really elucidate just what is going on, it'd be great to have some data on just how much damage is increased by adding a point to a weapon.

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